Wellington renews contract for inmate labor at preserve

Austen Erblat/Forum Publishing Group

Sun sets at the Wellington Environmental Preserve. The village recently renewed its contract with the Florida Department of Corrections to continue using inmate labor to do grounds work on the property.

Sun sets at the Wellington Environmental Preserve. The village recently renewed its contract with the Florida Department of Corrections to continue using inmate labor to do grounds work on the property. (Austen Erblat/Forum Publishing Group)

Austen ErblatSouth Florida Sun-Sentinel

Inmates will continue grounds work at Wellington Environmental Preserve

The Wellington Village Council voted to renew a contract with the Florida Department of Corrections for inmates from the Martin Correctional Institution to do grounds work at the Wellington Environmental Preserve.

The council unanimously passed the resolution approving the contract on its consent agenda that included replats for land in the preserve and contracts for telecommunications equipment and system upgrades, timekeeping and performance review software, and legislative agenda software.

The contract was renewed through January 2019, but Wellington has been using programs like this for years. The village will pay $57,497 annually to the DOC, which includes the salary of a corrections officer at $54,194. Most of the rest of the money goes to administrative costs, training, uniforms, safety equipment and vaccinations.

"Inmates granted community work release have minimal time left on their sentence, are minimum or community custody inmates and have a history of good behavior while incarcerated," according to an email from the DOC.

Municipalities and government agencies argue that using prison labor saves money since inmates generally aren't compensated. Assistant Village Manager Jim Barnes said in an email that comparing inmate labor costs to private or public sector employee wages is not a fair comparison since they are not worked, supervised or compensated the same way.

"This isn't a like-for-like cost comparison in that we would not replace the service with eight employees if we did not utilize the contract," he wrote. Barnes said the job would likely only require four or five employees to do the same work. "Given current rates, payroll and benefit costs for four maintenance workers are greater than $160,000," he said.

While city governments and many members of the public embrace the cost saving, worries remain about the historical and current use of prisoners for labor. Nancy Abudu, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, talked about inmate labor in the United States and its roots in the post-Civil War South.

"The prison system expanded with the end of slavery and the effort to use African-American free labor to continue the work that slaves were doing," she said.

When asked if she was aware of the historical background of the inmate labor system, Wellington Mayor Anne Gerwig said she did not see a parallel to slavery in any way.

"These are people who have been convicted of a crime," she said. "It's certainly not, to me, the same thing at all."

According to the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

"It's not that desirable as far as wanting to go out and do it, and we've never had any problems, we've never had a complaint from the public; I've never had anyone challenge whether it was a good idea for people who are serving their debts to society to actually serve their debt," Gerwig said.

Abudu said that she was not against the practice in all cases, but wanted to make sure inmate labor programs are implemented ethically.

"In terms of the basic practice of allowing inmates who are low-level risk or minimum security risk to get outside, get some fresh air, you know, that kind of, just, outside contact, we wouldn't be opposed to it," she said. "We just want to make sure it's done the right way and that they're not being taken advantage of."

Florida DOC did not respond to questions regarding health and safety standards or to claims that the programs are exploitative.